The running Elf soon managed to slither out of my sight for good, little did he know that while my eyesight is limited to the nearest treeline, my Mana Sense extends for the better part of 500 meters long. Why is he even running away in the first place? I come in peace... The three hovering disks enter an empty pouch on my bandolier as I ascend 200 meters. I am now above the trees and the path is clear, this is child's play, I thought as my armor turns 99% invisible and Sneaking comes into play.
Maintaining a distance of about 150 - 200 meters from the Elf, mostly to stay clear of the tall forest trees, I follow silently and quietly. He has stopped maneuvering in that tricky way agile experts do to lose their pursuers, believing that he has accomplished exactly that. He is now moving at an angle slightly to the left of his previous direction, maybe, who can tell when everything is trees. Though now that we seem to be going somewhere, I grin imagining the expression he'll make when…
Soon after, at the periphery of my Mana Sense. A wall---no, both a wall and a dome made itself known. Its massive. A wall of thorns approximately two meters tall is visible to the naked eye, while integrated seamlessly into it is a gate of similar design fitted with elegant wooden doors. Extending above it, and invisible to mundane sights is a dome. Undoubtly magical, and undoubtly a barrier of sorts.
The Elf approaches the gate. On a hunch, I blink as close as possible to the empty space behind him, then through the gate when it opens to let him in. Moments later, the gate once again close with a massive thump. All in all, the spherical wall is large enough to surround approximately 80 large trees, which are at least five diameter wide. As expected, Elves lives in hollowed trees.
"How peculiar." Voiced a charismatic high-baritone, perfectly blending the fine line between masculinity and elegance. "I see we have guest, welcome. I am Orodur Misthrárin."
Two very gentle applications of mana in opposite rotating directions to spin me, gently shifts my point of view from looking out at the dome to looking in, at the direction of their village. A young looking Elf stands a few meters slightly below and away from where I'm hovering. And yet, his charisma—not attributes, more the kind that comes with old age and wisdom born from the passing of time—excludes out of him in every way; in the gentleness of his smile, and the primordial aura he excludes by simply standing there with confident ease.
"Hello, thank you! My name is Zane. Glad to finally be understood. And as I had told that guy when we were out there," I became visible, face included, dispelled Micro Flight to drop down and return to my original size. All while pointing at the first Elf I met, then at the general direction of where we came from. "Nice to finally meet an Elf!"
I can't help but chuckle at the looks of that… ranger? Guy I first met—and to my delight another chuckle may also be heard from the direction of Orodur.
"Please excuse Erssoan for his incompetence. It has only been, if my memories serve me right, merely 48 years since his emergence. The boy lacks much, but has plenty of time to improve." Orodur tells me wisely—merely the age of a person, delivered in such a way he seems to me like a wise elder imparting his wisdom. Cool!
"It's fine, I just find it funny. Besides, isn't it because of said incompetence that I managed to make it here. I should thank him instead." I reply to him with a grin and turn to look at Erssoan, yelling, "thank you for being incompetent!!"
The looks on his face, and the older elf, when I turned back to continue our conversation made me laugh. I'm alone in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by hundreds of strangers too. Might as well be confident, even if I am feeling the pressure. Time to ease the mood, "Just kidding! I thought it might be funny, sorry if that offended anyone."
"A small matter," the elder waves his hands in a brushing gesture. "So, what brings you here, Earth Human Zane?"
I guess play time's over. "Well, you wouldn't happen to have seen another human would you?"
"I have." I knew it won't be that eas---
"You have?"
"Yes, In fact. He is right there." He points to my left, and I see Andre, Kirana's brother standing there with a bewildered look on his face.
"Thank yo—is he your guest or hostage? A slave perchance?" I ask Orodur.
"He is a guest." He answered with a charismatic smile.
"Thank you… Mr? Orodur," I tell him genuinely. "May he and I speak privately?"
The wise Elf nods, "I am generally addressed as, elder," he says. Then as an answer to my inquiry he waves his hand, dissolving the crowd we had gathered while he himself proceeds to walk away. I do wonder how he discovered me, maybe I'll ask him later.
"Thank you Elder Orodur," I said to his back. Then turning to look at Andre, "how are you?"
"Please, you have to rescue dad!" He exclaimed.
---
It turns out, Golems—ones above level 50—are currently my nemesis! They're too thick for the small Magico Disks to penetrate or when I invest the extra mana to; are too inorganic for the injury to matter. They are also too durable for beams as even water attuned beams merely turns them to mud, a substance they can manipulate freely. They are mostly immune to lighting, ice or wind, and have no soul. I am left with no choice but to conjure a large hammer, using it to physically destroy them, one hit at a time. Thank System for my over-inflated attributes.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
This is gonna take a while, lucky I had the mind to text and update Kirana on the way here… Oh! Haste!! It feels like the golems are barely moving now, my hits too, land faster. While targeting their weaker points becomes much easier, thus quintupling the speed at which I demolish them. Could have used this when chasing after Erssoan.
One, sometimes two of my thoughts continues to demolish these free experiences while the rest begins the process of designing a spell that will better effect enemies such as these. Maybe a large, explosive, physically damaging spell?
Latent Coating—they are foolishly slow when the floors are slippery—smash! smash!.. rinse and repeat. The ruin is a series of massive warehouse-like buildings; some tall and high, some spacious and wide. All in all, they occupy approximately, I can't tell as they are massive… but the one before me is maybe ten times the size of an olympic swimming pool. And there are uncountable amounts of these.
Not soon enough, the golems are slain and no more reinforcement arrives. How in the world am I supposed to find their dad in a space this humongous?
Kirana: We're coming!
Zen: ETA?
Kirana: 30 mins…
Zen: Great, take care!
Talk about perfect timing... Our current HoverBus can run at about 250 km/h, if I'm not mistaken, which is pretty slow. Right? But no sense waiting right here, I might as well try to check the nearest building out. Whatever those walls are made of, they're making my Mana Sense go whacky. Thus preventing me from Sensing anything within, not even through the multiple tears.
I walk through an open entrance large enough to fit two airplanes side by side. inside, a whole bunch of machinery may be found. Most are in various states of disrepair, their uses and functions I cannot even begin to imagine. I quickly explore the building and find nothing else of interest besides the one functioning machine at its center, it is the largest one there is.
Most obvious is a container of sorts, filled to the brim with stone, it's easily the largest among the machine's various parts. My guess would be it is where materials are stored and prepped for further processing. From it, massive pipes lead up into six elevated relatively smaller constructs in the rough shape of a star, before all six lead down to a final coffin-like construct.
As I stare at the massive thing doing whatever it is it's doing. The final construct suddenly made subtle pshh-ing sounds before its front-half opened upwards to reveal a golem… Oh my go–System! It's producing those level fifty-plus-plus golems! Automatically!?
It opens its eyes, notices me standing there dumbstruck, and instantly goes on the offensive by charging at me. Only to be dismantled the non-gentle way not a minute later. I can't help but think of the grinding potential of this place. So, while it is producing another golem, I approach what I assume to be its console; it's in a language I cannot read.
And of course, there is a big red button!
Oh I am so tempted!! Even if it almost never is a good thing to pre—I decided to exit and check out the different buildings before I fall into temptation; most just are storage, used to store stones and rubbles. Fortunately, In a storage within a storage, as in, a smaller building within one of the bigger ones; I found a mess of various ores stacked high and an even smaller box of precious gems within. Though the gem-box itself is maybe the size of a small car… Small is a very vague adjective word. Took me quite a lot of self control to not just store the box in my Repository at this moment.
I explored more than fives of the nearby massive building and still no sign of Mr. Dad anywhere. But it has now been about 30 minutes since Kirana's ETA, so I wait for them outside… as darn big-red-button kept tempting me! Very soon, I spot the new piece of magical-tech fast approaching from the horizon.
I watch it stop. Then Kirana, followed by the others, jumped off. Followed again by one.. two… six cloaked, slightly short-but-stout and strongly built men carrying crossbows and hammers on their person. Of course, when there are Elves, there are Dwarves!
"Have you found my dad? Anything we should know?" Kirana asks me seriously.
"I haven't, sorry. The place is too big!" I proceed to very briefly describe to them what I have found through my exploration so far. Amidst that, a golem walked out of the entrance, but was instantly shot down by the Dwarves. So the interruption was efficiently interrupted.
"Nunc porttitor mollis finibus?" The lead Dwarf asks me, pointing at the remains of several golems. In reply, I stare at him blankly.
"Ah, this is Minedora. She is a senior marksman from the Obsidinum clan. Who has been at war with the Golems that infest these gnomish ruins." Then, like Minedora she proceeds to interact with her System, "gimme a moment."
Gnomish ruins huh?
The dwarves talk among themselves while we wait, and I try to be discreet while I give them side-glances out of curiosity. Discreet or not, I never know as they never show any signs of recognizing me. Soon, Kirana looks up at me. "Okay, so. Dora says that these golems are, as you said, produced semi-automatically here. As long as one golem survives, they always repopulate. As one would begin feeding the machine with stone, this produces another Golem, which would then do the same, etcetera."
"There are three known variants so far; a level 55 Golem Workers, their level 65 Guards, and lastly level 95 Overseers." Her explanation continues. "Not a single gnome has been seen in hundreds of years, though the machines continue to produce them and the Golems continue to work as programmed. They also commend you for destroying so many alone, but they want you to know that these are mere workers, maybe a guard here or there. The bulk of their population lies underground, in their expansive mines."
I nod my head to her explanations, I had maybe fought almost a hundred of them, less. But it was fun, they are durable and their attacks are very substantial. The idea that there are more excites me! "Alrighty, can you tell them to check this warehouse. There is a machine that produces the golems, do they know about it and if yes, do they know how to turn it off? It produces lv 55 golems every… I'm not sure about that. But it is producing hostile golems."
"One moment," she replies with a nod. Typing on her VICOS just like Minedora… are they chatting? Before I could ask, Kirana opens her mouth to say; "they know of it, but have never had the chance to tinker with one, can they?"
I make a please, do as you wish gesture by swishing my open palms and say, "go for it."
The excitement level of all six Dwarfs soon escalated and they rushed into the warehouse. I'll just trust them to know what to do, so I ask Kirana and at the same time cast Detect Karmic Thread at her. "Well, how are you communicating with them? And please check where your dad is."
"There's a translation software we can purchase for our VICO—he's underground!! This way!" She suddenly yelled and started running.